Honey Joy - II
London band Honey Joy release their second album, imaginatively titled II, on the 4th of September on Everything Sucks Music. I’m heartened to be able to tell you that this does not suck at all. The recording of the album was also apparently assisted by the input of the band’s pug Vinnie, this is not immediately apparent in the finished article. Anyway, to the music!
Honey Joy make the kind of fuzzed up pop punk (they will probably hate that label) that you’ll find it hard not to bounce around and sing along to, just don’t wait too long though as this album doesn’t hang about with 9 short, sharp, nuggets clocking in at just under 20 minutes. I can imagine their live sets are a LOT of fun.
It perhaps jars a little to use a word like ‘fun’ about an album which was influenced by singer Meg Tinsley’s struggles with mental health and subsequent mission of self love, and song titles such as ‘Pain’, ‘Acute on Chronic’, ‘Part Two – The Healer’ and ‘Finally Home’ do seem to suggest a struggle in the writing of these songs, but it really is a joyous listen.
Arguably the strongest tracks are ‘Pain’, which packs in a whole heap of 90’s indie rock familiarity, and ‘Queen Ray’, the longest track at 3:21 (practically a prog track in the context of the album), which uses that extra space to pack in hooks galore, guitar solos and a great sing along chorus.
No wheels were reinvented in the making of this record, but sometimes new wheels aren’t needed to make great music. It is a cracking album, and I’m now off to see if the first one was just as good.
8/10
